Sassypatch! Strange Dreams! And a Bamboo Massacre!

Wow, guys! Just, wow! What an AMAZING weekend.

So many expectations exceeded.

So many great memories.

Here's just a sample of what you missed, from this weekend...

Sweating.
Boy, did I sweat A LOT, this weekend.
The new apartment only has A/C in my bedroom. And because I'm being a responsible electricity user, I only turn it on, in the evening and through the night, while I'm sleeping. Which means that in the morning, when I wake up, I exit my bedroom and walk into a nearly solid wall of humidity that suckerpunches the breath out of me.
At home, I wear nothing but boxers. I dress only when food is being delivered or I need to take the dog out. Otherwise, I wear only my BVDs and a nearly constant layer of sweat.
Also, I drink a lot of water and fluids. And constantly make sure that Maggie has water too. (And I feed her ice cubes too. She likes that.)
I've given up on NOT SWEATING like an absolute pig, all the time. I just accept it and move along. (And carry a hankie in my back pocket, to wipe away the forehead sweat.)
Woof, but it was a fucking hot weekend.
If this were the Olympics and Sweating was an olympic sport, I think I would've made it through the final HEAT!
Get it?

"Final HEAT!"

Get it?

No?

Ah, fuck you, then!

Moving along...

Sassypatched.
I had a show on Saturday evening around midnight. It was called "The Dirty Mind of..." And features a monologist, telling dirty stories, which we turn into scenes. Usually, we have no audience or very small audiences for those shows and that's sort of a bummer. But THIS month's show was performed by Alison Mayer. Who's supercute. And also, on occasion,can be SuperHot.

Consequently, I was really looking forward to hearing what crazy assed sex stuff she's done or LIKES to do.

What I got was three different monologues about times that she'd injured her vagina in a horrible, temporarily disfiguring accident. Plus one that involved her shitting all over herself, in a lake. So, any sexy thoughts I had, were pretty much bludgeoned out of my head.

For those who want to see WHO I'm talking about, watch the HIMprov show. She plays my poor, poor beleagured wife.

All jokes aside, it was also a remarkably coherent, fun show to do. I caught myself laughing a lot at the things that the other players were doing. And I broke, in a couple of scenes because the things that my scene partners were saying, amused the Hell out of me.

The show BLEW by. And 45 minutes afterwards, I walked offstage, thoroughly enjoying myself. It was probably my favorite Sassypatch experience. And next month, I'll be less anxious to cancel for lack of audience.

But that wasn't the best part of the night.

The best part of the night was hanging out with Irene. A new friend of mine.

Bamboo Massacre
Irene was one of the cast members of Sassypatch. I've played in the show with her, before, but we never seem to end up in scenes with each other. (And when we do, she plays sexually aggressive girls and I always run away, terrified. Which tells you more about ME, than it does about her.) We've never really had any social, hangout time. And Saturday night, became that.

After the show, we went back to the Town Hall and had a few cocktails together. Irene taught me, at Sassypatch a few months ago, that when a pretty girl backs out onto the dance floor and wiggles at you with her finger, you BETTER get up and go dance with her. So, when Irene backed up from me and motioned for me to come out there and dance at the Town Hall, I went!
And I looked like a total baboon out there, flailing my arms like I was fighting off bees that only I could see. And there was an odd mix of graceful, well executed moves, mixed in with my patented drunken stagger. I was always on the verge of either looking cool or falling down completely. But never did either of them, completely.

I had a great time dancing with Irene. Irene's a lot of fun to dance with. And she looks great out there. And she smiles at you and laughs at you and makes it all right to look like a clumsy doofus, because she's having fun out there with you, too.

We danced to some Michael Jackson song and it was actually LOADS of fun.

Later, she let me buy her a cocktail and we closed down the bar, discussing, arguing and playfully joking about comics. Irene reads comics. I managed not to propose to her, on the spot. I'd have to say, this was one of the most intelligent, interesting, accessible conversations that I've had with someone (of any gender) about comics, in a long, long time. I even found myself disagreeing with her about some of it, but I loved hearing her explain her point of view. Which is to say, that I had a great time talking with her.

After the bar closed, we decided to navigate our way home, together. We ended up walking a few blocks, to get off of Halstead street. All of the cabs were being swept up by the teeming masses of drunk gay men in the street. The bars had all let out and the street looked like a tipsy, gay riot in a country where the national flag was in rainbow colors.

(I also got aggressively propositioned by Bryan, an Orlando Bloom lookalike, who was "only in town for Gay Games." He looked over at Irene and then whispered in my ear, "I could love you better than any little theater girl. It would be VERY different." I said, "Yes, yes it would. Thanks, Bryan, but I think I'm a little past my experimentation phase." It was nice, though, to be "the pretty girl" for once. It was less nice, when I found out later that he'd offered the same sex to Hendo, too. Ah well. I was the pretty girl for a little bit, anyways.)

Irene and I staggered together to Southport and I caught us a cab home from there. She was a leetle, beet tipsy too. And we laughed a lot on the cab ride home, making little jokes to each other. So much fun.

If you ever have the time or opportunity to go out with Irene, I highly reccomend it. It's a pleasure.

Incidentally, the title of this section, "Bamboo Massacre", comes from a sign outside an Oriental Massage Parlor, that I've just discovered near my home. I mis-read "Bamboo Massage" to be "Bamboo Massacre" which initially shocked the hell out of me. Clearly, it was a place where one would go to be massacred, by bamboo-wielding Asians.
Imagine my relief, when I properly read the sign and saw that it was a place where I can go for a soothing full body massage and handjob, by the Asian lady of my choice. I'm thinking of getting a year long membership and heading over there whenever I feel the need to have an ACTUAL woman touch me. Instead of the imaginary ones.

I will always think of it as the "Bamboo Massacre", though.

Pirates 2
Saw Pirates 2 with Hendor and Megan on Saturday. The walk to the Davis, at 1pm on Saturday was brutal. Thank God, the place was air-conditioned.
Hey, I loved that damned movie! I like the first one, an awful lot. And this was more of the same. Which is just fine with me. I hope the one, next summer is ALSO more of the same. They do, "the same" stuff, very, very well.
People who complained about Pirates 2, are mildly retarded. What were you expecting, actually?

Strange Dreams
Another experience that also exceeded my expectations, was getting to see one of the three performances of Matt Rossi's stageplay, "The Incredibly Strange Dreams of Nobody In Particular". Matt and his theater company, Tantalus, has very smartly staged the show in a secluded little park, a block away from the Western stop. In a for real, park.
There are logs set up as seats, around the little staging area. They have a campfire there, where you can roast Smores after the show. And a girl who swings fire pots. And live music and all of this happens in the middle of a largely overgrown, flower garden. With trees and bugs and grass. It really isolates you from the world and opens you up for a "different" type of show experiences.
The show uses nothing but 5 storytellers, offering up 5 different stories. All with a unifying theme, of Loss and Pride and Challenge. This was the middle performance of a 3 performance cycle. Part 1 deals with hope and optimism. Part 2 deals with Loss and Trials. Part 3 deals with Redemption and Experience. If you were to go see the show Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, you'd see the whole show, as it makes it's journey. And characters and themes re-occur between the three nights. Which is a very smart idea.
The show is very, very Gaiman-esque. (I consider that to be a compliment, by the way.) I mean to say that impractical, fanciful imagery exists as part of the everyday world of these characters. I find that to be charming. There's not enough whimsy in the world. Especially not enough, well-executed whimsy. Which is what Matt and his company do, very, very well.
I told Matt this. And I believe it to be true. This show could run indefinitely. And it could grow into something much, much larger than this and become an actual "True" festival, if he wanted it to. Personally, I'd like to see that happen. I'd like to see flags and jugglers and music and stories and puppets and shadowplays, etc, all as part of this much bigger project. I wish just that sort of success for Matt and his show.

The only thing that I didn't like about his show?
That I waited so long to see it.

If I'd caught it earlier, I could've told more people about it and taken friends to enjoy it. It has only this weekend coming up (and then some very exciting shows in Millenium Park). I'm going to see Part 1, this coming Friday. And I doubt I'll ever see Part 3. But then again, that's okay. Because that means that the story doesn't have to end for me. Maybe not until the next time the show runs. I might go buy an ending for myself, then.
It's a great show. If you read this blog and would like info about it (or want to go with me on Friday), email me and we'll work out the details. You'll be glad you did.

Recorder
Finally, I saved the best news for Last.
On Saturday, after the Pirates movie, I walked over to the Old Town School of Folk Music and purchased a Recorder for myself. You might remember the Recorder as the absurdly simple wind instrument that you might've played in elementary school. Yeah, well, I never did. I never had a Recorder growing up and I decided that I was going to fix that, as soon as possible.


Mine, is the black one. The fifth one from the left.

I decided some months ago that I wanted a recorder for myself. I wanted to learn how to play a wind instrument of some kind and the clarinet, piccolo and flute all looked really, really hard. The Recorder though, THAT looks like an instrument that a person can master in a week or so.

Or in two days, as it turns out.

I bought a "children's Introduction to Recorder" music book and through it, I've already learned all 8 of the notes that the Soprano Recorder can make. And I've learned how to finger my scale. (Which is different than having your Bamboo Massacred, even though it sounds the same.) On day 1, I learned the opening bit of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and last night, I taught myself "Jingle Bells". (without the opening stanza. I'll learn that tonight.)

By Christmas, I hope to have a decent catalogue of Christmas Songs to share with my mom and dad. I haven't told them about the recorder and they won't see it coming, until I start to play it. (Also, I play Santa for the kids in my family and there's a VERY good chance that Santa will be playing the Recorder this year. Which would be very, very cool.)

I want to learn "Ave Maria" and "Vocalise" and "Air" for the Recorder. All of them, slow, sad classical music pieces. Hopefully, they can be played within 8 notes. Because that's all the recorder has to offer. If not, trying to learn them will be a fun challenge, anyways.

One side note, when I bought my recorder at the Old Town School of Folk music, another lady came in and bought three of them for her 5 year old nephews. I smiled, embarrassed, that I was buying a 5 year old's musical instrument for myself. Luckily, the pretty little clerk at the store didn't bust my chops about it.

So, it was a good weekend.
Good conversations.
Good movie.
Dancing.
Acting.
Learning to Play an Instrument.
And the promise of Asian Handjobs in my immediate future.

It was a very good weekend!

Cheers,
Mr.B


"Please, Sir, may I Massacre your Bamboo for you? "

"Yes, yes you may."